on the drive home, they didn’t talk; she was somewhere out the window, staring through some...

on the drive home, they didn’t talk; she was somewhere out the window, staring through some middle distance.  At the light he slowed the car and rolled down the windows just enough to let in some air.  He was feeling sick.  The lines on the road kept moving.  At the pharmacy, he asked her if he wanted her with her.  No, she said.  You’ll never find parking.  Just wait in the car.  While she was inside, he listened to the radio.  There was a radio preacher talking about all the terrible things he’d done before he found religion.  The preacher had a high squeaky voice and was taking calls from his listeners.  They talked to him about their problems– money, and family, and problems at work.  When she got back into the car, he switched the radio off.  The rest of the day, they tried to avoid each other.  He went out into the yard and mowed the lawn.  When he came back in, she’d already tucked herself into the bedroom, the TV going through the door.  He went back out and started working the grass off the edges of the patio.  Then he went into the car, hoping he could just drive this feeling out of him.  He drove around their neighborhood, unsure about where it was he wanted to go.  Finally he ended up in the parking lot of the Stop & Shop.  He picked out a shopping cart from the bay of shopping carts and rolled it inside.  The light seemed harsher somehow, the air thin and cold.  He pushed on through the aisles, looking but not really looking.  In the candy aisle he found a economy size bag of jellybeans.  He looked at the bright colored beads through the clear-plastic.  He’d always loved jellybeans.  He remembered eating them by the fistful when he was younger– feeling the soft sugary grit across his tongue.  Why had he given them up?  He looked over the ingredients, took two more bags and made his way over to the register.  That evening, as per the doctor’s orders, they ate light.  Some thin soup and toast.  Leave the dishes, he told her.  I’ll take care of them.  Before bed, he watched her as she lined up her pills along the edge of the sink.  What do you want, she asked.  Do you need my help with anything?  She shook her head.  She scooped the row of pills into her palm and swallowed it down with a glass of tap water.  Let’s just go to bed, she said.  That night, he lay beside her, unable to sleep.  His brain was all over the place and he couldn’t slow it down.  He looked at her shape beneath the blankets.  Her breathing was steady.  He’d never noticed it before.  How thin and reedy her breath could sound.  He tried to picture the thing inside her lungs, its shape as air rushed along its edges.  He shut his eyes but it was useless.  He went downstairs to the kitchen and dug out the first bag of jellybeans from the cabinet.  He tore it open and breathed it in.  Sweet.  Chemical.  In the dark he slipped his hand inside.  He felt the surface– cool, soft– and dug his fingers deeper into the pebbled darkness.